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New York, NY – Lower East Side Performing Arts (LESPA) and St. Mark’s Church present Waking in New York, the opera by Elodie Lauten and Allen Ginsberg, to be performed on Sunday, June 1 at 3:00 PM at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. A YouTube webcast of the opera will be recorded and simulcast from the National Opera Center on Friday, May 30 at 2pm at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zMJ2KeV4Zs and will remain available online.

This final version of the opera is for 9 singers and 10 musicians, conducted by music director Kenneth Hamrick, with baritone Mark Duer in the lead role, sopranos Meredith Borden, Catherine Rothrock and Mary Hurlbut, flutist Andrew Bolotowsky, Mat Fieldes, on contrabass, Afro-Cuban percussionist Mustafa Ahmed, members of the American Virtuosi Orchestra, and the St Mark’s Church Chorus with Jeannine Otis.

In Lauten’s unique operatic setting, Ginsberg’s stream of consciousness weaves his introspection, observations, sensations, emotions, sexuality, humanity and spirituality into a New York City moment. Each scene is full of stories, characters and dramatic flashes deeply related to the very fabric of the city and painting a complex portrait of Ginsberg, culminating in his prayer for humanity: “That all beggars be fed, all dying medicined, all the loveless tomorrow be loved”. Characters include Allen and his muses, Freedom 1, Freedom 2 and Compassion, joined at the end by a chorus.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2014 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Concert Announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.